VINNIE PAUL Says DAMAGEPLAN Would Have Been In It For The Long Haul If DIMEBAG Hadn't Been Murdered

November 18, 2016

Vinnie Paul Abbott says that DAMAGEPLAN would have been in it for the long haul had the band's guitarist "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott not been murdered more than a decade ago.

Dimebag was co-founder and lead guitarist for PANTERA. When PANTERA broke up in 2003, Dimebag and his brother Vinnie Paul formed DAMAGEPLAN. On December 8, 2004, while performing with DAMAGEPLAN at the Alrosa Villa in Columbus, Ohio, Dimebag was shot and killed onstage by Nathan Gale. He was 38 years old.

During an appearance on yesterday's edition of "Trunk Nation", Eddie Trunk's new show on SiriusXM channel Volume (106),Vinnie Paul was asked if he thought DAMAGEPLAN would have been around for years to come if Dimebag's life hadn't been cut short. He responded: "I do. We were hurt. We didn't know what happened with PANTERA. It wasn't an official breakup; there wasn't anything where we said, 'Well, that's it. We're done.' It's just…. They [vocalist Philip Anselmo and bassist Rex Brown] just quit taking phone calls and [were] off doing their own thing, and so we felt like it was time for us to move on and do our thing."

He continued: "The first [DAMAGEPLAN] record, I think, was pretty diverse. We wanted to do something that didn't sound exactly like PANTERA, and with [the material that was written for] the second record, it was really focused, man. I've got the demos and some day they'll come out. But I really feel like we had turned a corner. We'd been out, the fans had seen us, and they'd accepted the fact that this was our new thing at this point."

According to Vinnie, touring with DAMAGEPLAN was a humbling experience after spending several years playing in mostly arenas with PANTERA.

"You don't get anything easy when you come from a big band and you go and start another one," he said. "You learn real fast that, 'Wow! I went from the top of the mountain to all the way back to the bottom, and I've gotta start over.'"

Since his brother's murder, Vinnie Paul has released several Dimebag-related items through his Big Vin Records label, including DVDs and the paperback book "He Came to Rock". Vinnie later said that the Dimebag-related releases weren't an attempt to cash in on his brother's tragic end but rather a way to keep Dimebag's legacy alive and well.

"It's sad to say, but you just get larger than life when you're gone," Vinnie told "Trunk Nation". "It's just really weird. I really appreciate it, man. The fans have kept his legacy and everything he's done intact and alive, and it's just constantly growing, man. His legend's huge."

DAMAGEPLAN — whose lineup was completed by singer Patrick Lachman and bassist Bob Zilla — released its debut album, "New Found Power", in February of 2004. The group was touring in support of the record at the time of the shootings.

Find more on Pantera
  • facebook
  • twitter
  • reddit
  • email

Comments Disclaimer And Information

BLABBERMOUTH.NET uses the Facebook Comments plugin to let people comment on content on the site using their Facebook account. The comments reside on Facebook servers and are not stored on BLABBERMOUTH.NET. To comment on a BLABBERMOUTH.NET story or review, you must be logged in to an active personal account on Facebook. Once you're logged in, you will be able to comment. User comments or postings do not reflect the viewpoint of BLABBERMOUTH.NET and BLABBERMOUTH.NET does not endorse, or guarantee the accuracy of, any user comment. To report spam or any abusive, obscene, defamatory, racist, homophobic or threatening comments, or anything that may violate any applicable laws, use the "Report to Facebook" and "Mark as spam" links that appear next to the comments themselves. To do so, click the downward arrow on the top-right corner of the Facebook comment (the arrow is invisible until you roll over it) and select the appropriate action. You can also send an e-mail to blabbermouthinbox(@)gmail.com with pertinent details. BLABBERMOUTH.NET reserves the right to "hide" comments that may be considered offensive, illegal or inappropriate and to "ban" users that violate the site's Terms Of Service. Hidden comments will still appear to the user and to the user's Facebook friends. If a new comment is published from a "banned" user or contains a blacklisted word, this comment will automatically have limited visibility (the "banned" user's comments will only be visible to the user and the user's Facebook friends).